鄧麗君, 祝你生日快樂

In my mom’s old camera, there exists old footage of middle school-aged me practicing for “Chinese School Idol,” which is what exactly what it sounds like - an American Idol-like competition at my Chinese school.  

As most other American kids at that day and age, I didn’t have any clue what pop culture was like outside of the U.S. Consequently, you can imagine picking out a good song in Mandarin would be difficult. My only resources for Chinese and Taiwanese media were my parents. And so, without much choice, I had to completely rely on them. They immediately pointed me to Teresa Teng.

I combed through a Teresa Teng CD to listen to my options, and was floored. Her pure voice filled my ears with words I couldn’t quite understand yet, but her delicate vibrato and melodies evoked feelings of longing and romance. I felt just as entranced by her as my parents probably were. For my first year doing “Chinese School Idol,” my teacher picked “Xiao Cheng Gu Shi” for my sister and I.  For my second year, I chose the song myself - "Yuan Xiang Ren."

"Yuan Xiang Ren" - the winning song

I forgot about Teresa Teng until recently, when I felt nostalgic and clicked on her Spotify page. Again, the same emotions hit me as they did when I first listened to her music. This time, however, I was curious to learn about Teresa Teng as more than just a really famous Taiwanese singer.

Born in Taiwan in 1953, Teng realized her passion for singing at a young age and actively pursued it as a career. She received a record contract in her teens, and eventually gained popularity in many other Asian countries, going so far as recording songs in not only Mandarin, but also Taiwanese Hokkien, Cantonese, Indonesian, Japanese, and English.

Although the People’s Republic of China attempted to ban her music during the 1980’s, deeming it too sensual, the black market enabled her to become a national superstar nonetheless; villagers in the remote countryside were even fans. The Chinese bestowed Teng the nickname “Little Deng,” as she shared the last name (and large influence) of China’s then-paramount leader - Deng Xiaoping.

Despite her huge Chinese audience, Teng never performed in the country and declined every invitation to do so. During the 1989 Tiananmen student protests, Teng performed in Paris to show her support for the students.

As a Taiwanese pop star, linguist, and even activist, I consider Teng to be a remarkable person, and can be a role model for not only Asian women, but for young women everywhere.  

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Teresa Teng. <3

A Gift of Sound and Vision

David Bowie influenced me in both big and little ways.  His album Hunky Dory remains my favorite of his (a recent Google search tells me it was also released on December 17 - my birthday day!!), with the utterly perfect "Life on Mars" to the all-around life-anthem "Changes."  I semi-bonded with my high school sophomore English teacher when he asked where I got the Heroes concert tee I was wearing, to which I embarrassingly answered "eBay."  When I created my League of Legends account a few years ago, I came up with "Case Oddity" as my username, which I thought was a clever homage and pun at the time, but no one really ever gets it.

Anyway, a ton of people have written more eloquently and more poignantly about David Bowie than I could ever have.  Although I, and many other of his fans, have never met him, it's obvious that he reached out to us through his art in ways that personally affected us.

Here's a few of my favorite David Bowie things from the internet.

"Dancing in the Street" - David Bowie and Mick Jagger

The dance moves.  The outfits.  The great "IDGAF" dynamic between this duo of famous rockers.  So delightfully cheesy and up-lifting.

"Pictures of David Bowie Doing Normal Stuff"

Often times when you think of David Bowie, you think of Aladdin Sane or Ziggy Stardust or perhaps another one of his louder personas.  This neat compilation of David Bowie doing "normal things" is a cute look at David Bowie being...normal?!

Analyses on David Bowie's Bulge

Many viewers report that David Bowie - specifically, his crotch - as Goblin King Jareth in the movie Labyrinth was responsible for their sexual awakening.  Which is hilarious, noteworthy, and very understandable.  I would kill to be in Jennifer Connelly's place.

Amber Humphrey's blog Nostomanic is full of quality posts such as her ratings of U.S. presidents.  One post that particular stuck with me was her open letter to Jareth about his infamous and noticeable bulge, and how it can be more efficiently utilized to hold other items because of its size.

Also, there exists a web page wholly devoted to his "area" as well.  It includes a purity test that exactly captures the thoughts and struggles that Bowie Bulge fans have always internalized.

David Bowie's 1983 MTV Interview

MTV recently uploaded a portion of their interview with Bowie from 1983, in which Bowie asked the interviewer, Mark Goodman, a very important question - "Why are there so few black artists being featured on MTV?"  Goodman tries his best to answer Bowie in a PC way, but it was apparent that Bowie had pointed out a glaring issue in the mainstream music industry.


RHCP's Flea getting a Bowie tattoo

And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds.
Posted by Flea on Monday, January 11, 2016

Not only did Flea write a really touching Facebook post about David Bowie, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist also got a tattoo in his honor, shown in a video on his Instagram as "Fill Your Heart" plays in the background.

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Thank you, David Bowie, for showing us to be unafraid in our own pursuits to self-discovery.  The very act of reinventing ourselves - whether small or large - is essential to our own growth as human beings - and perhaps the best way to respond to and investigate a world we're still making sense of.

GORGE-OUS ZINE

During winter break, I decided I wanted to make a zine.  Or a zine-y type thing.  So I took out a heap of magazines - most were old issues of Seventeen Magazine (S/O to 2008 T-Swift!!) - and tried to find some sort of inspiration/common theme in them.  What resulted was GORGE-OUS - basically a teeny tiny collection of simple collages that focuses on the relationship and interplay between food and body in teen magazines.  

I first noticed throughout my digging was this weird contradictory message about how girls should feel about their body.  On one hand, ideals of body positivity and loving yourself were sprinkled throughout the magazines quite a few times.  On the other hand, there were specific sections tailored for girls yearning for that "bikini bod," including workouts ("GET FLAT ABS") and dietary suggestions ("DON'T EAT FRIES") .  I felt this was kind of confusing.  Is my "natural self" pretty enough?  Do I listen to what I'm told to eat?  At which point am I allowed to accept and love my body?

Likewise, I discovered that Seventeen (I suppose I'm now umbrella-ing other similar girl-targeted media under Seventeen, as I'm sure they do the same) surreptitiously objectified bodies itself.  In most every issue, there was a recurring feature on which jeans/dress/whatever a women should buy, according to their "body type."  The types that weren't "tall," "athletic," and "petite," were identified as "apple" and "pear."  To me, designating the shape of a women's body - namely, those that don't align with the prevailing standards of beauty - as fruit is a little off-putting.  Wouldn't it be just as odd if we dubbed "tall bodies" as "celery" and "petite" as like, "baby carrots"?   For many in the beauty and fashion industry (not just Seventeen!), however, it seems that equating certain women's body shapes as kinds of food is more palatable.

What if instead, people just wear whatever they feel like wearing?  Because in essence, these kind of guides for buying clothes that are your "most flattering fit" are basically trying to find ways for your body to conform to the typical mainstream beauty expectations.  I mean, for some that may be what they aim for.  But if I'm a "tall girl" and want to wear baggy boyfriend jeans even though it's a technical no-no for my body type, I shouldn't have to feel a shred of self reproach.  

Lastly, a sort-of unrelated non-food-thing-but-still-body-objectification-thing was how Seventeen treated men (!!).  I'm far from a meninist/MRA/red pill reddit user, but I do know that guys are also harmed from expectations for their gender.  Like, imagine a men's magazine that has an article title "How to Meet Hot Girls!!"  Seventeen was essentially the same; it advised its readers on where and how to snag a cute boyfriend - not unlike male pick-up artists teaching people how to charm girls.  Seventeen defined the male psyche as basically sport-obsessive and masculine.  The simplification of males as dudebros contributes to the standard that "real men do this, this, and this!"  Another problematic and worth-mentioning issue with Seventeen's "love" section was the practically sole focus on just heteronormative relationships.  Besides the occasional reader-submitted story, the magazine didn't publish much advice for LGBTQ individuals.

ANYWAY, these were my semi-coherent thoughts when making GORGE-OUS.  It's a pretty short zine and doesn't take itself too seriously, but I had fun doing a non-writing creative thing and seeing how the collages almost formed themselves. 

Hope everyone's had a good holiday season, and Happy 2016!

(Video Music Credit: https://soundcloud.com/keyboard-kid-side-stuff/pure-pure-you-look-so-good)